COVID shuts down Mardi Gras, but cake is still king

A lot has changed in the last year for Tyler Roe, baker at Bonnie’s Bouquets and Bakery in Patterson.
The versatile 26-year-old, who also is a tailor, had been making Mardi Gras costumes for local krewes. However, COVID-19’s effects wrecked his tailoring business, and following a three-year hiatus, he returned to a long-time love in the baking business to help with his income.
“I lost a lot of money this year, because I was doing professional costumes for Mardi Gras,” he said as he prepares dough for one of this year’s king cakes he is making at the bakery. “I did Galatea and Dionysus.”
He’s just one of the many who have adjusted to a different Mardi Gras this year that will be absent parades and balls.
Even without a traditional Mardi Gras, though, it doesn’t mean king cakes can’t be enjoyed.
“I really believe that the king cake becomes more of a focal point this year,” Cannata’s Market President Vince Cannata said. “Normally it’s the parades, and the king cake’s kind of like a little accessary.”
Not this year, though.
Cannata said the king cake has a bigger impact on celebrations this year in gatherings, because it’s “the one common bond” south Louisianians have with previous Mardi Gras celebrations.
He said sales at the business, which has three stores, have increased.
“People seem to be enjoying it a little bit more,” Cannata said.
Bonnie Riggenbach, owner of Bonnie’s Bouquets and Bakery, said sales have been down this year.
Arthur Pennison Jr., assistant store director at Rouses Markets in Morgan City, said while he hasn’t looked at the sales totals recently, he said sales are high in some of the chain’s stores.
“The king cakes have not stopped,” he said. “It’s still a staple of Louisiana’s Mardi Gras season. Even though there’s no parades, no floats, no balls, people are still looking for Mardi Gras king cake.
"They’re still looking for … Rouses great king cakes.”
It’s a tradition that has been around for about 150 years.
According to Manny Randazzo King Cakes’ website, it is believed the practice of making king cakes came to New Orleans from France in 1870.
The colors also have meaning, with purple representing justice; green, faith; and gold, power, according to Randazzo’s.
“These colors were chosen to resemble a jeweled crown honoring the Wise Men, who visited the Christ Child on Epiphany,” Randazzo’s website said.
So with a tradition that has been in south Louisiana for 100-plus years, what exactly makes a good king cake?
Pennison said a quality king cake, like with any food, is produced from “the love and care” that goes into making it.
“We have some very wonderful ladies that work back here in the bakery department,” he said. “It’s the taking of the dough from the prep stage of where we take it and make it into the ring …” and then continuing through the baking and icing and decorating. “It’s the care we put into our business, how we handle it,” Pennison said.
Roe, who has been baking for about 15 years, said “small, loving batches” is what makes a quality king cake.
“I think small batches, each one made by hand, not too fancy but old school,” he said of the homemade product.
Cannata’s also uses a homemade product.
“All of our cakes are made from scratch and hand graded, hand mixed, rolled out on old-fashioned sheeters, and then we proof them ourselves to let the dough rise,” Cannata said.
After baking the cakes, they are decorated onsite.
And the fillings in the king cakes seem almost endless, with Bavarian cream the top seller at Rouses Markets and Bonnie’s Bouquets and Bakery, while Cannata’s most popular king cake is likely the goey butter snickerdoodle, for which Cannata said the store won the business the “People’s Choice Award” at the King Cake Fest in New Orleans.
King cakes made locally are shipped nationwide, too. Rouses ships in the continental United States, while Cannata said they have sent the delicacy to Hawaii. He said they send quite a few to the Hollywood area, too.
Back at Bonnie’s, Roe, who also is a licensed florist and works in the floral department at the business, said as he preps king cakes for baking that his first love perhaps is where he should have been all along.
“Who knows? Maybe I was meant to do this,” he said.